Here's what we got up to this week -
* Made 7 jars of plum jam using fruit I froze from last Summer. Some of these jars will be given as Christmas presents.
* Saved tissue paper from a pair of new shoes ( in the shoe box ). This tissue paper is great for adding to a gift bag.
* Bought a pair of boots for next winter in Kmart for $7. Bought Darren two pairs of Winter pjs reduced to $6 a pair.
* Replanted our strawberry plants and weeded the area. I also feed them with Seasol. Hopefully they'll do better this coming season and give us enough fruit to make jam as well as eating fresh fruit.
* Let the chickens free range while Darren and I sorted out the strawberry patch. The chickens had a great feed of weeds and snails.
* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness.
* Made up two bottles of double strength Miracle Spray.
* Watered the veggie seeds I planted last week with saved warm up shower water.
* Froze 7 single serves of leftovers. We are starting to get a big stockpile so it's time to write ' freezer meals ' into the menu plan.
* Dried all the washing on the line. I'm so happy Spring is here. It's the money saving season with less heating being used, no air con needed, washing on the line and more daylight ( not needing to turn lights on as often ).
* Gratefully received lots of bread bags from a charity bbq. They will be used to line bins, wrap meat and to cover bowls in the fridge.
* Picked silverbeet from the garden for two meals.
* Juiced and froze the last of the lemons.
* Portioned the remaining amount of tomato paste into ice cube trays and froze.
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| My new $7 boots |
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| Jam making |
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| Strawberry patch replanted |
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| In the garden. |
I have never thought of Spring as the money saving season, Wendy, but I guess it is! I got out in the garden too this week and planted two types of cucumber and snow peas.
ReplyDeleteI potted up a dwarf mulberry too. I got Seasol for half price at supermarket this week. I use it often so was good saving.
Your plum jam will make lovely gifts. I am a bit behind with my gift making so I have started knitting a cotton washcloth and decided on some fabric scraps to make hair tie scrunchies. I've also cut out simple skirt to sew up this weekend.
My son has his school concert this week coming so I visited op shops to put his costume together. I needed a little waistcoat and found one for $3.
Have a lovely week! Meg 😊
Hi Wendy and you did well for the week and the jam looks divine and new boots lovely too :).
ReplyDeleteOur savings added up to $407.35 last week :).
Here is how we saved and got ahead last week -
Finances and listings -
- Listed 15 items on eBay using a free listing promotion saving $24.75 over usual listing costs.
Earnings-
- Earned $12.91 from the sale of 100 g of thyme picked and dried from the gardens.
Purchases -
- With money earned from the sale of handmade items and herbs I purchased off eBay 2 parts of the tightwad gazette saving $59.62 on new prices, 2 wrist guards saving $3.90 and 2 knee guards saving $1.42 on usual prices.
Groceries -
- Did our last part of our 3 monthly shop and ended up being $172.30 under our grocery budget for the 3 months yay !. Buying only when things are on special is paying off and our pantry stockpile is growing steadily :).
- I saved a further $19.70 by buying specials over and above the $40 saved using our $240 for $200 Woolworths e-voucher.
- We topped up above our usual stocks on 12 tins of mango slices, 11 bottles of sarsparilla, 12 pkts of baking chocolate chips, 1 container of cottage cheese, 1 carton of wet cat food and 2 pkts of dry cat food.
In the gardens -
- Harvested 29 bunches of silver beet and 2 kg of broccoli from the gardens saving $112.75 over purchasing them in the shops. We blanched and froze these giving us 23 more double meals of silver beet and 2 more double meals of broccoli. Our silver beet is likely going to bolt with the heat so we try and stock the freezer in the cooler months for summer.
- Started white onion, carrot, cucumber and capsicum seeds in pots on the veranda and the onions, carrot and cucumber seeds are already sprouting :). We started them in pots as our frosts here are just over and this gives us a head start for the vegetable gardens.
- Saved shower warm up, vegetable blanching & cooling and dish rinsing water to water newly planted seedlings on the veranda and in the gardens and fruit trees on the back veranda.
Have a great week ahead everyone :).
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
Hi Wendy, Liz here from WA, I'm enjoying the first Spring days too, although the mornings are freezing with the windscreens frozen this morning!
ReplyDeleteMy frugal tasks this week -
Cut a load of firewood off the farm this morning
Hubby repaired a bent steering arm on the 4 WD, saving us $500 to get it repaired or replaced elsewhere, I was very relieved, there's not a lot he can't fix!
Bought a fantastic Jeep 4wd for our son's first car getting a great price for a well maintained and tidy car. When I went to insure it I was so impressed with the price quoted that I re insured both cars, paying less than I had been paying for just the one car. As hubby has a work car provided, we got the insurance very cheap as we don't use the private cars a lot, saving quite a lot of money!
Not for everyone I suppose, but read about making wee wipes, so I cut up an old towel into 20cm pieces, and its most successful, saving $$$ on toilet paper, and I figured that I spent many years washing cloth nappies, and its no different. All the water is free thanks to the rain to wash them. As the only female in the house I have noticed quite a saving already! Of course some toilet paper is still required :)
Made a batch of miracle spray and washing powder this week!
Cooking with home grown produce, Lamb and veggies as much as possible.
Hubby, who is a black belt in Karate, helped run a self defence course for women last Sunday for a couple of hours, and was kindly given a $50 community cash voucher as a thankyou, and it can be spent at any local shops!
We were gifted a couple of bottles of wine also from 2 different people as thankyou gifts!
Took our sheep down the road for shearing this morning, and they kindly shear, drench and back line for free in exchange for the wool!
Needed to go to town twice this week, but bundled all the tasks together, saving petrol, and did the monthly grocery shop at Coles and redeemed $10 flybuy dollars!
So a great week here, have a lovely week ahead Wendy
I have more strawberries bought at $2 a kg to make into jam. I have given some away and people are asking for more. I think I will save that for Christmas gifts. I went to Costco to stock up before my card runs out. I save over $100 per bag of cat food as I used to buy a premium one and when I searched on line their brand food rated more highly. The cats like it too. I bought formula for my granddaughter at a saving of just over $5 a tin. I was allowed to buy six. I only purchased one thing not on my lost but my mother's choices busted the budget. I am thinking about which herbs to buy and possibly buying some tomatoes and strawberry plants. I live in south east Queensland and it can be hot here. I was pleased to see the passionfruit is recovering from being pruned. Last night I cooked enough for two meals and I also found a rolled beef roast that was heavily reduced. It didn't look too fatty so I thought it was worth a try.
ReplyDeleteThose boots are adorable!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to follow in your footsteps in a few years. We planted a plum tree this year, to make up for the sad apple tree we had to cut down. We'll see if the plum tree makes it, I know how finicky fruit trees can be!
My biggest frugal win this week was receiving two skeins of free yarn in return for emailing the yarn company with a complaint about one of their skeins of yarn I'd been using that had some flaws. Their customer service was wonderful, and as I was only expecting them to send one skein, the second (in an absolutely gorgeous colorway) was a lovely surprise. It wasn't cheap yarn, either, so I was quite happy. :)
This has been a week of topsy-turvy weather! 90 degrees one day, 60 degrees the next! Rain some days, sunny on others! Fall is definitely going to get here, but for now, it will be a temperature “adventure” each day!
ReplyDeleteOur chickens continue to give us 3-1/2 dozen eggs a week so I’m finding ways to use them up in quantity! So I made a new breakfast burrito recipe using scrambled eggs, diced ham(fron freezer) and potatoes! The original recipe called for hash brown potatoes so I almost rehydrated some of mine that are dried, but then I remembered that the night before, I made French fries and there were some leftover! I put those in the food processor to chop up and Voila!! It became a tasty “Use-it-Up “ breakfast! I was able to make 10 of them!
I took some plain yogurt and added the last bit of apricot jam from the jar in the fridge and made apricot yogurt that was enjoyed as a snack! I did the same thing using some apple strawberry jelly and yogurt and my family think I’m wonderful! Lol!
We sat down with our financial advisor who did projections for our retirement coming up in May and determined that we won’t need to dip into our retirement account until we are 95 years old! So that was reassuring and well worth the hours of paperwork and being frugal (which we will continue to be!)! On our projected budget, the advisor insisted that we put a minimum of $500/year expense for clothes! We did but explained that in all our years we have never spent anywhere close to that amount and didn’t expect that to change!! Lol!!
Bought 3 bottles of mouthwash free using coupons and rewards cash! Canned 4 pints of raspberry jam from raspberries I got for 50 cents/basket!
And the best thing? I made and marketed my Scrappy Bags- reuseable tote bags in 4 sizes made from scraps of fabric and batting I already have in my stash, which becomes a Win-Win! Extra income + decluttering and paring down my stash!!! 10 bags sold in the past 7 days!
I’m rarely going to grocery store these days unless there is an extraordinary deal on something I use regularly and need to replenish my stock so our food budget has been low!
Because of the more moderate weather both heating and a/c use have been almost non-existent! I love this time of the year!!
Hi Wendy, Its a wet, wet, wet day here in Penrith and I am catching up on some online reading. You mentioned you replanted your strawberry plants. I need to do ours which will be going from planters to a garden bed. Do you have any tips on replanting them?
ReplyDeleteCongrats also on soon to be grandparenthood!!
Hi Vicky. The strawberry plants need to be transplanted before they get lots of Spring growth. I watered them every day for the first week then every second day after that. I also added Seasol to the water and fed them once a week. My plants haven't died and are still growing and flowering.
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